Our spirit must not fade

When it comes to Sept. 11, we all have a story to tell. The details have become vital. Who we were with, what we were doing, how the day played out. I was just starting my freshman year at Princeton. My day was an unsettling mix of department open houses, advising meetings and hours spent watching television and talking to high school friends, trying to discern whose parents had made it out of Manhattan alive. It's not a particularly noteworthy story, but it is mine. More than once in the year that followed that awful day, I have sat with others my age, and we have told our stories. Some are dramatic: relatives who worked near the Towers, friends who were visiting the Pentagon, neighbors who miraculously missed their flights. But most stories are like mine. They are about hearing news on the radio, watching the unthinkable unfold on television, placing calls to those we cared about and being afraid. Ultimately, the stories are about making it to the next day.

Today, 365 next days later, will be filled with retrospectives and memorials. And yet it is also a day when Americans will get up and go to work or run errands or get on an airplane. A year after the terrorist attacks, we have successfully returned to normalcy, that state so sought after last September. Today, we are a more patriotic nation. We have renewed faith in our leaders. We appreciate one another more. What we lost amongst the debris in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, we have tried to make up for in spirit.

Yet, as we read magazine articles and hear television commentaries about the triumph of our nation, we must realize that there is danger in this distance, in each day that passes. While we will surely always remember the thousands who died, we must also remember what they died for. Each flag hanging over a front porch or stuck in a car window must mean something, must be the symbol of the freedoms and responsibilities that set us apart. It is not enough to support our leaders blindly and attack our enemies with a zeal that rules out the concerns of justice and liberty.

When it comes to issues like airport security, nation building in Afghanistan, racial profiling, immigration or attacks on Iraq, we as a people must push the envelope, asking questions and demanding change. We must show that longer lines at the airports and Senators with flags on their lapels are not enough to placate our desire for safety and accountability. We must also continue to focus on issues like funding education, reforming health care and ending discrimination, ensuring that the opportunities and freedoms which so offend our terrorist opponents remain available. This, more than any story we can tell, is the best tribute to those who died on Sept. 11.

If the attacks of a year ago proved anything, it is that America is a great nation. I, like all my fellow students, was young on Sept. 11, and so it is likely that a day will come when I will be called upon to give my account of what happened for another generation, one which cannot fully comprehend the pain and fear, the compassion and triumph of the past year. I will tell my story. I will say that our country rose above what happened in a way that was awe-inspiring. I hope I can also say that our spirit did not fade, that in the months and years that followed, we did the heroes and victims of Sept. 11 justice. I hope I can say that after one tragic reminder, we never forgot what it means to be American. Katherine Reilly is from Short Hills, N.J. She can be reached at kcreilly@princeton.edu.